Society

28 Inspirational Black Canadian Women

In honour of Black History Month, we're highlighting 28 black Canadian women—one for each day of the month—of the past and present, who have made contributions to Canadian society in the realms of fashion, culture and politics.

Zanana Akande

1 / 19

Image by: Twitter.com/ONPARLeducation

“This time, we’ll leave no woman behind,” activist and former politician Zanana Akande said at this year’s Toronto Women’s March. Akande has dedicated her life to social issues. She was the first black woman to be elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1990. After leaving politics in 1994, she stayed committed to working with many community-based groups, like the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. As seen at the Women’s March, Akande can still be found using her voice for activism; she’s currently working as the chair of the Black Legal Action Centre, a new non-profit set to launch later this year.

Traci Melchor

2 / 19

Image by: CTV

For years, Traci Melchor has been bringing her vibrant personality and intelligent reporting to our TV screens. Born in Pickering, Ont., the Etalk correspondent got her start as the host of MuchMusic’s RapCity. Throughout her career, Melchor has covered countless red carpets and conducted insightful interviews with hundreds of stars, including Beyoncé, Oprah, and Mariah Carey. Melchor helped launch The Social as a co-host, but left the show in 2016 to take care of her mental health. Today, aside from her duties at Etalk, she inspires by supporting a number of charities and talking openly about the importance of self-care.

Janaya Khan

3 / 19

Image by: Texas Isaiah

In 2014, Janaya Khan co-founded Black Lives Matter Canada after the death of Jermaine Carby, who was fatally shot by a police officer in Brampton, Ont. (The police officer was not charged.) Currently based in Los Angeles, Khan continues to fight for the justice and equality of people of colour and the LGBTQ community.

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Winnie Harlow

4 / 19

Image by: Getty

Not many people can say they’ve given a TEDx talk, been name-checked in a Drake song, and appeared in a Beyoncé video, but not many people are Winnie Harlow. The 23-year-old was discovered by Tyra Banks on Instagram and made her international modelling debut on America’s Next Top Model in 2014. While the GTA-born model didn’t win the cycle, she began appearing in campaigns, fashion weeks, and in magazines (including gracing the cover of our February 2017 issue).

Lana Ogilvie

5 / 19

Image by: www.instagram.com/lanaogilviemodel

In 1992, Lana Ogilvie became the first black model to sign a contract with CoverGirl. After being scouted at her high school fashion show in Toronto, she moved to New York and signed with Ford Modeling Agency, walking in shows for high-profile designers like Azzedine Alaia, Sonia Rykiel and Karl Lagerfeld. In the '90s, Ogilvie became an advocate for more inclusive representation within the fashion industry.

Viola Desmond

6 / 19

After Halifax-born entrepreneur Viola Desmond found success in running her own hair salon, the trained beautician opened a beauty school where she was a mentor to many black Canadian women. But across the country, Desmond is remembered for bravely challenging segregation: while at a movie theatre in 1946 in New Glasgow, N.S., she was forcibly removed after sitting on the ground floor—the whites-only section. Although Desmond offered to pay the one-cent difference in tax, she was still arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail and charged a $26 fine. In 2010, the province of Nova Scotia apologized to and pardoned Desmond, who died in New York in 1965. This year, she will become the first Canadian woman to appear on the face of a Canadian banknote.

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Wondagurl

7 / 19

Image by: Chris Nicholls

Brampton-born producer WondaGurl (née Ebony Oshunrinde) got her big break at the ripe age of 16 when a track sent to Travis Scott, an American rapper, ended up in the hands of rap legend, Jay-Z. “It was weird,” she said in an interview for our March 2016 cover. “It didn’t feel like my beat anymore because you never imagine Jay Z using your stuff—especially at 16.” She went on to produce two songs for Drake’s 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and worked with Rihanna and Big Sean. The now 21-year-old is still producing and working toward the ultimate goal: working with Kanye West.

Gersha Phillips

8 / 19

Image by: instagram.com/antoinettemessam

Since the '90s, Phillips has worked as a costume designer for both film and television. Although she studied fashion and costume design in school, it wasn’t until she saw the opening credits of the film Beaches that she decided to pursue costume design as a career. The Toronto-based costume designer has worked on the sets of several films like Walking Tall, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, where she was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design. Currently, Phillips works on the set of Star Trek: Discovery and was nominated for a Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Sci-fi/Fantasy TV.

Angela James

9 / 19

Image by: twitter.com/canada

You may better recognize women’s hockey pioneer Angela James by her nickname, the “Wayne Gretzky of women’s hockey.” James earned the famed moniker after scoring a stunning 50 goals and 73 points in just 14 games during a season at Seneca College. Despite missing the Olympics—she was controversially cut from the first women’s team in 1998—James still made an international mark throughout her career, helping lead Canada to gold four times at the Women’s World Championship. James retired from play in 2000 and moved on to coaching. In 2010, James became one of first two women, the first openly gay player, and only the second Black athlete ever to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

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Mary Ann Shadd

10 / 19

Image by: National Archives of Canada

Mary Ann Shadd was born in 1823 in the slave state of Delaware to “free” parents, whose home was a safehouse on the Underground Railroad. The eldest of 13 kids, Shadd eventually moved to Windsor and opened a racially integrated school. By 1853, she founded and edited the Provincial Freeman, a weekly newspaper that was anti-slavery and publicized the successes of Black people in Canada, making her the first woman to publish a newspaper in the country. Before her death in Washington D.C. in 1893, she became one of the first Black women to earn a law degree. In 1994, she was honoured as a person of national historic significance in Canada.

Mitzie Hunter

11 / 19

Image by: Courtesy Mitzie Hunter

“By being an example, you have the ability to encourage other women to take risks, show initiative, and take on leadership roles,” Ontario MPP and Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development Mitzie Hunter told us last year. And Hunter, who immigrated to Canada with her family from Jamaica when she was just four years old, definitely leads by example. Before becoming a politician, the U of T grad was the CEO of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, where she dedicated herself to social, economic, and environmental issues. Elected to the Liberal government in 2013, Hunter was just recently promoted to the minister of advanced education and skills development, where she will work on issues like providing free post-secondary school tuition to students in need.

Measha Brueggergosman

12 / 19

Image by: instagram.com/bravo_niagara

Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Brueggergosman started singing at age seven. She went on to receive a B.A. in Music from the University of Toronto, and, in 1998, received the lead role in Beatrice Chancy, an opera about an enslaved African-Canadian woman in 19th-century Nova Scotia. Following the success of her debut role, the singer—who combined her and her husband's last names to get Brueggergosman—has gone on to perform across Canada and the world. In 2005, she won the Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral. Brueggergosman recently published her first book and memoir, Something Is Always On Fire: My Life So Far. She can be seen both on and off stage as a performer and music education advocate.

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Jean Augustine

13 / 19

Image by: instagram.com/jm_augustine/

Jean Augustine is the reason Canadians celebrate Black History Month every February. Born in St. George’s, Grenada, Augustine immigrated to Canada in 1960 and went on to be the first black female member of Parliament. In 1995, August made a motion to recognize February as Black History Month, which passed unanimously, 305-0. As a result of her hard work and dedication to education and politics, she received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, and was appointed to Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014. Augustine retired from politics in 2006 but continues to work as an advocate and community builder at the Jean Augustine Centre for Young Women’s Empowerment.

Esi Edugyan

14 / 19

Image by: YouTube: Canadian Heritage

We’ve been making space on our bookshelves for Esi Edugyan’s writing since her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published in 2004. Born in Calgary to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Edugyan’s work explores diaspora, black histories, and ideas about belonging. In 2011, she won the Giller Prize for her second novel, Half-Blood Blues, which CBC included on their list of 150 books to read for Canada 150. Edugyan has also won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her most recent work, 2014’s Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home, was her first non-fiction book. Her newest novel, Washington Black, hits bookshelves later this year.

Marci Ien

15 / 19

Marci Ien has long been a trusted name in Canadian broadcasting. The Ryerson alumna worked all over the country, joining CTV’s Atlantic bureau in Halifax in 1997. Since then, she’s covered Queen’s Park, national news, and was an anchor during the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Toronto-based Ien greeted Canadians every morning as the co-host of Canada AM for more than 13 years. She now graces our screens as one of the hosts on The Social. On top of her award-winning work, Ien also travels around the world for charity and is a mentor at an after-school program in Etobicoke.

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Carrie Best

16 / 19

Image by: Canada Post/Archives Canada

Carrie Best, an active civil rights advocate, is recognized as the first black woman to publish and own a newspaper in Nova Scotia. She founded The Clarion in 1946, which circulated until 1956 when it was renamed The Negro Citizen. As a journalist and publisher, Best used her media platform to advocate for the rights of black Canadians and notably supported Viola Desmond’s case against the Roseland Theatre. (Best and her son had been arrested at Roseland a few years prior, also for sitting in the "whites-only" section.) Her work spread across several mediums including her own radio program, The Quiet Corner, and a column on human rights for the Pictou Advocate. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from St. Francis Xavier University and University of King’s College and, after her death in 2001, was posthumously awarded the Order of Nova Scotia in 2002.

Michelle Jean

17 / 19

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When she was just a young girl, Michaëlle Jean and her family fled their home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to escape the totalitarian regime of François Duvalier. They settled in Quebec, where Jean eventually attended the Université de Montréal. While a student, she was also an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and worked at women’s shelters. In the late ‘80s, Jean became a journalist for Radio Canada, making her the first black person in Canada to be seen on French TV news. By 2004, she was well-known by French Canadians and was hosting her own current affairs show. In 2005, Jean became Canada’s 27th Governor General of Canada; she was also the first black person and third woman to fill the role. Since leaving the job in 2010, she has become the secretary general of the International Organisation of La Francophonie, the first woman and Canadian to hold the post.

Harriet Tubman

18 / 19

Image by: Getty

You’re definitely familiar with American Harriet Tubman, one of the most well-known abolitionists from the U.S., but how much do you know about her connection to Canada? Tubman was born into enslavement in Maryland in 1820, finally escaping to Philadelphia in 1849 using the Underground Railroad. When she learned that her niece and her family were to be auctioned to another slaveholder, she returned to Maryland to help them flee, starting her work as a conductor on the railroad. After a law was passed that would allow refugee slaves who had fled to the North to be forced back into the slave trade, she took her rescue missions to St. Catharines, Ontario. Tubman moved to the Canadian city in 1851, where she would open her door to new refugees, all while continuing rescue missions. She made about 10 trips on the Underground Railroad, leading at least 70 people to safety in Canada.

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Martine Chartrand

19 / 19

Image by: Caroline Hayeu

Montreal-born painter, illustrator, animator and director Martine Chartrand is truly a master of her craft. Four years after completing her BFA in visual arts at Concordia University and certificate in art education from the Université du Québec à Montréal, Chartrand directed her first animated film, T.V. Tango, for the National Film Board of Canada. Her second NFB film, Black Soul, won 23 awards, followed by her third, MacPherson, which won the Best Short Film Award and the Public Award for the Best Canadian Short Film at the Montreal World Film Festival 2012. Chartrand studied under famed paint-on-glass animator, Alexander Petrov, and helped with the preparation and production of his animated film The Old Man and the Sea. Today, Chartrand continues travel to around the world to hold lectures and workshops for paint-on-glass animation.